FKOM REVOLUTION OF JULY TO DEATH OP THE KING. 163 



Thus was brought about a change deeply affecting his outward 

 career, but of little influence upon his inner life. 



General von Rochow writes from Potsdam on September 

 25, 1830, to Von Nagler, the postmaster-general : ] ; Humboldt 

 goes, much to his own gratification, to Paris ; behaves, however, 

 as if he were sent thither, and maintains that he must await 

 despatches from Count Bernstorff, while the minister gives out 

 that he merely takes this opportunity of sending letters by 

 him.' A mixture of truth and falsehood lies in these invidious 

 expressions. There is not the shadow of a doubt that Hum- 

 boldt went c for his own gratification ' to Paris. It was, as we 

 have seen, one of the stipulations agreed upon on his return to 

 Berlin that he should spend four months yearly in the French 

 capital ; but he had hitherto been prevented from availing 

 himself of this permission, first by the lectures on physical 

 geography, and afterwards by the preparations for the Asiatic 

 expedition. A visit to Paris had, in fact, been definitely ar- 

 ranged for the autumn of 1830, as appears from his letter to 

 Bunsen 2 from Teplitz before receiving the intelligence of the 

 Revolution of July : ' We start the day after to-morrow for 

 Berlin, whence we intend shortly to proceed to the Rhine, and 

 in any case I shall go in September to spend some months in 

 Paris.' 



In a letter to Freiesleben, dated September 27, he states that 

 his journey is fixed for the following evening, should the de* 

 spatches arrive in time. His first sojourn in Paris lasted four 

 months, but his return to Berlin in January 1831 seems only 

 to have been for the purpose of obtaining fresh instructions, as, 

 after a stay of eighteen days, he again set out for the French 

 capital, where he remained for fifteen months, till April 1832* 

 His next mission to Paris detained him from August till 

 December in the year 1835, and the following visit, which com- 

 prised the period between August 20, 1838, and January 3, 1839, 

 was the last he paid during the lifetime of Frederick William 

 III. During the succeeding reign he was four times in Paris, 



1 E. Kelchner and K. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, 'Preussen und Frankreich 

 zur Zeit der Julire volution/ p. 23. 



2 ' Briefe an Bunsen,' p. 9 j see also the note at the close of the preceding 

 chapter. 



M 2 



